I am watching events in the Ukraine closely these days. Of course I know that neither alternative will prove to make things better for most of the people, but my sympathies are with those who try to not get sucked into Putins dictatorship orbit. A bad market economy with at least some democracy is always better then a badly managed state economy with no democracy at all…

Behind the scenes I get word of astonishingly well financed and professional managed “NGOs” that massively support the pro-western candidate. Reminiscent to the choreography of the coup in Georgia, but circumstances are different this time. Russia has too much at stake here.

As the Internet has made it into the Ukraine too, there are of course a number of up-to-date weblogs that report of events, including pictures. Here is the quick list of those I try follow:

http://vkhokhl.blogspot.com/
http://eng.maidanua.org/
http://windowglass.blogspot.com/
http://www.postmodernclog.com/
http://TulipGirl.com
http://europhobia.blogspot.com/
http://fistfulofeuros.net/

(On some of them, scroll down to the bottom for latest news)

Latest are reports on militia units moving against the protestors to push them back from the central area of Kiev (Ukraines capital), conflicting with reports that the Ukrainian special forces guarding the presidential palace are friendly to the protesters. There are also reports about unidentified, probably russian, special forces that are heavily armed inside the buildings.

Unfortunately my current bet is that the pro-russion side will win this time, as the “security forces” have much more to gain from an alliance with russia. That bet is good unless the west pulls some real stunt (like the one with the “students” that are said to have been “by chance” in the Moskow white house near Jelzin and talked over the satellite phone they brought “by chance” to their “uncle” in the US who just happened to know an awful lot about what the evil generals just talked about on their phones…).

My dear american friends,

We have believed you when you said “Look, this is not the real USA! We, the liberal, good americans won the last election, just the courts stole it from us. We as a nation are not like these morons governing us.”.

It was all to plausible. We wanted to believe you. The idea of a nuclear armed superpower governed by a group of right-wing religious fanatics is scary enough. The idea that the majority of citizens really wanted to be governed by these zealots was to bad to contemplate. We wanted to believe that this was just an accident, an temporary mishap that would be corrected for sure in the next elections, because the real liberal, freedom-loving america would rise its head and end the aberration.

Now, my american friends, this was obviously an illusion. As the elections have shown you live among a majority of people who rather want to be “secure” then free, who prefer “moral values” over freedom of thought and action. Apparently the “real” USA has awaken. It is the ugly one, the rednecks, the “regular churchgoers”, the Fox-TV-watching, Prozac-swallowing, mindless suburb zombies with their SUVs. Even if they won through fraud and manipulation, your “better” america let them do so, again. Maybe it does not really matter that much which Skull&Bones-men governs you for the next four years, but letting religious fundamentalists roll back the civil liberties that are the core of western society is not an option.

You, my american friends, belong to a nation that happily wastes 25% of the worlds energy ressources without even pretending to be interested in doing something about it. Your nation has just decided, with a clear majority of voters, to continue wrecking the climate without any remorse and to continue destabilizing entire world regions in the name of access to cheap energy.

Face it, Bushs word about “defending the american way of life” is just the truth. Your country will need all its military might to continue endangering the planets future. “American way of life” is precisely the problem. Not only because your nation is following it. No, it is also that through the superb US media industry this “american way of life” is held as the one and only shining lifestyle-example for all the aspiring entrepreneurs in all “emerging” countries. Imagine, everybody on this planet wants now his own SUV and his own badly isolated energy-wasting house in surburbia. Of course they do not know how boring this lifestyle becomes after a while. But when they realize this, it will be too late für mother Earth.

So please, my american friends, do not wonder if from now on no one is going to believe you when you try to talk about the “other america”. Yes, I believe that it is there since cool technology is still invented in the US, Nobel laureates in large numbers still come from the US etc. pp. But apparently the other America is neither relevant nor able to bring this nation to some sense. Stupidity and ignorance are no excuse. We are talking about the very future of this planet, not just some minor difference in politics.

So please, my american friends, try to convince us that there is some hope. Presidents can be impeached, electronically manipulated elections can be challenged, life for governments can be made very difficult by a determined and creative opposition. Make Bush wish he never was elected for a second term. Fight to get your country back. Going back to sleep and wait another four years is not an option…

And if you decide to escape the madness by going somewhere more agreeable, send me an e-mail. Old Europe is not so bad, after all.